HmQ ENGINEERING

Proaress J and Achievements Front cover illustration shows the future Southampton Headquarters. Work is expected to start on this project before the end of the year and it should be fully operational by mid-1991. Overview During the year gratifying progress has been made on several large building projects that will provide modern, comfortable, and cost-effective accommodation for our staff for the rest of this century and well into the next. Work at Avenue House, the headquarters building for D&ED, is complete, while the Transmission headquarters at Warwick and the Corporate headquarters at White City are on schedule for occupation by autumn 1989 and spring 1990 respectively. The completion date for the new Radio headquarters at White City has now been put back to 1997 to allow for the prior construction of the dedicated centre for News and Current Affairs. Because of this, the refurbishment programme for Broadcasting House has been revised and extended to ensure that first class studio facilities are available for Network Radio over the next ten years.

On the Radio transmission front, we are now providing an FM service for Radio 1 over a large part of the country. We started the ball rolling with a service on a temporary frequency from Crystal Palace in October 1987, and a few weeks ago transmission began from Sutton Coldfield, Holme Moss, and Black Hill. Wenvoe Radio 1 has just come on-air and Radio 1 services will begin from Oxford and Black Mountain in late November, giving UK coverage of about 65%.

RDS enjoyed an impressive press launch on 20 September and is now being extensively promoted at the Radio Show. There seems little doubt, however, that a long campaign will be needed to get the message over to the trade and the public, similar to the hard slog undertaken in the late seventies to get Ceefax off the ground. It will be worth it for the sake of broadcasters and public alike.

In Television we seem at last to be reaching some kind of consensus, in Europe at least, on an evolutionary and compatible approach to the introduction of HDTV. The important part being played by Research Department in the Eureka HDTV project and RACE (Research into Advanced Communications in Europe) will ensure that we are well placed to introduce and exploit the relevant new technologies for the benefit of programme makers and viewers.

Finally, the outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease in the area of Broadcasting House marred what was otherwise a very good year for the BBC. The enquiry chaired by DDE underlined how important it is to every one of us that plant maintenance procedures should be correctly followed and rigorously monitored. Prompt action, ably supported by ACED, helped to control the situation very rapidly after the outbreak was identified and also enabled air conditioning services to be provided quickly. Transmission

ORGANISATION service and additional Radio 4 (UK) Amalgamation of Transmission coverage in the National Regions. Departments Although slightly lower in the The amalgamation of the Transmisson priority order, the programme of and Transmitter Capital Projects filling gaps in the UHF television Departments is virtually completed coverage and RWOP for the BBC's and the restructuring, along with the telecommunications network has introduction of a number of changes continued at a pace which has been in methods of working and the determined by the availability of relocation of all Transmission finance and manpower. Engineering and Transmission Oper- ations Headquarters staff at a single Transmitter Engineering location in Warwick, is resulting in In line with similar exercises in the a reduction of approximately 100 South West and South East of England, posts. a re-organisation of team bases embracing Wales, North of England and NEW TRANSMISSION HEADQUARTERS Scotland is under way: Work is progressing on the construction of the new Headquarters Wales building at Warwick and there is The Llanddona team base will close every indication that it will be this year and responsibility for the ready for occupation, on schedule, by maintenance of stations in the 12 September 1989. Llanddona area will be taken over by Blaenplwyf and Moel-y-Parc. To allow a phased move to take place, and to accommodate the personal North of Enaland requirements of individual members of Responsibility for certain sites in staff, temporary office accommodation the Lake District will be transferred has been obtained in the Warwick area from Winter Hill to Skelton. Winter and is now occupied by some 90 staff. Hill will assume responsibility for This figure is expected to rise to those stations on Isle of Man. 120 by the end of the year. Within five years the Pontop Rike TRANSMISSION ENGINEERING team base will be phased out and the The Transmission Engineering Stockton team base will expand to Department comprises two Project cover the larger area. Groups - Communications and Transmitters with specialist-based - Scotland Sections responsible for Antennas, The Selkirk team base will close this Transmitters, Power, Tele- year, and maintenance respon- communications, Monitoring and sibilities will be transferred to Control, and Broadcast Commun- Black Hill. ications. A Project Management Section has also been established to ensure effective project management Within three years, Meldrum and and financial accountability on Rosemarkie will close and a new team multi-disciplinary transmitter base centred at Inverness will take projects. over the major parts of both areas. Stations in the south of the Meldrum The highest priorities were area will be maintained from Forfar. identified as the continuing Three years afterwards, the Gairloch programme of work for World Service team base will close and the and the expansion of the FM domestic equipment in that area will be services. The latter included the maintained from the new base at provision of a national Radio 1 Inverness. This reorganisation, which has covered the whole of the UK, is now complete and there will be a period of consolidation and stability.

Valve Section Valve Section in its original form at Motspur Park no longer exists. Semi- conductors are now available from D&ED and the large valve provision now operates from Daventry.

Daventry has also become the home of the overseas supply section.

Monitoring & Control Centres The manning hours for the Monitoring and Control centres at Holme Moss, Kirk o' Shotts, Sutton Coldfield and Wenvoe have been altered to 0800 to 2000. Cover for outside those hours is being transferred to Crystal Palace.

Test Equipment Responsibility for all of the test equipment used in Transmission is now The new FM antenna tower at Kirkton centralised in Monitoring and Control Mailer also provides for BT services. Section of Transmission Engineering, and the opportunity has been taken to and a further six FM network fillers rationalise the purchase, issue, have been brought into service, maintenance and replacement of this including High ~ycombe, Pendle equipment. The rationalisation Forest, and Stanton Moor. Ridge Hill procedure, which commenced with replaced Hereford and Kirkton Mailer computerisation of equipment and replaced Perth. Transmitters have usage records, will result in a more also been provided for the first two cost effective and reliable service of the seven remaining Local Radio for all users. stations. These were at Churchdown Hill and St roud for Radio FM RADIO Gloucestershire, and Malvern and The high priority work of adding new Ridge Hill for Radio Hereford & FM services and improving and Worcester. extending coverage is gaining momen tum . In addition to the Work is now in hand for the temporary Radio 1 FM stereo service manufacture of FM PIE (Programme from Crystal Palace for the London Input Equipment) for the Re- area, FM stereo transmitters are now engineering programme and the in operation 'at Sutton Coldfield, addition of Radio 1 and other Wenvoe, Holme Moss, and at Black Hill services: the bays are being made by where an additional FM transmitter commercial manufacturers to BBC has also been provided for Radio 4 specifications. Modification work is (UK). By the end of the year in hand to extend the existing temporary Radio 1 FM transmitters station monitoring systems to cope will also be in operation at Oxford with the additional services. and Black Mountain (Belfast). LF/MF Re-engineering is complete at LF re-engineering at Burghead and Blaenplwyf, Sandale and Black Hill, Westerglen is complete and these stations have been in service on 198 stations by new solid state kHz since February of this year. Re- transposers manufacture by LGT, and engineering continues at Start Point at the end of the period under review and at Stagshaw to complete the only it is expected that an order will be remaining high power MF work. placed for equipment to cover the remaining 23 stations. NICAM This year has seen the virtual A newly designed 1 kW solid-state completion of the phase 1 NICAM transposer using separate sound and distribution network: Meldrum and vision amplifiers has been ordered Rosemarkie in the Highlands of from the UK company Continental Scotland are now fed, and Belfast has Microwave for the BBC2 service at become the NICAM distribution centre Haslingden, to replace the obsolete for Northern Ireland with feeds to klystron equipment. This new compact Divis and shortly to Londonderry. equipment will release space for new The completion of the network allows FM radio filler equipment at this implementation of the new Radio 1 FM site and at the same time provide the distribution network. opportunity to gain operational experience of solid-state UHF TxED engineers, in association with television equipment at this power D&ED, are now specifying the MK2 level. NICAM system which will enable Phase 2 of the NICAM distribution to proceed, allowing a further two channels. Equipment is also being designed for the final Phase 3 scheme which will give a total of 24 high quality NICAM sound channels networked throughout the UK.

TELEVISION Relay Stations To cover areas still unserved, 25 new low-power relay stations have been built and equipped this year jointly with the IBA, bringing the total number of stat ions (including main) in service up to 893. Obsolete TWT transposer equipment has been replaced at 11 of the older 200-watt - Sound/vision combiner suitable for dual-channel sound (photo: Varian).

Uain Stations The work of replacing obsolete equipment at the main high-power New 25 kY television transmitter stations with high efficiency showing the small size of the equipment requiring less maintenance klystron assembly (photo: Varian). effort has continued. Re-engineering is complete at Pontop Pike where new in advance of the PIE. Project work Marconi parallel klystron trans- on the new PIE itself is due to mi t ters have been installed. commence shortly, on completion of a Parallel klystron amplifiers of Technical Investigation. Varian manufacture have been delivered for the next three stations Two-Channel Sound-in-Syncs and the installations are complete at The stereo tests continue from Black Hill (in the new UHF Crystal Palace, and the dual-channel transmitter hall) and at Wenvoe. The sound-in-syncs equipment needed to new BBC2 transmitter at Emley Moor deliver stereo signals to other has been installed in space created stations on the network is undergoing by removing one of the original extensive trials, using both mobile transmitters, whilst carrying the links (Tel OBs? and fixed links (BBC2 service using transportable con- from Cardiff through Wenvoe, tainerised equipment. A similar Blaenplwyf, Llanddona and Moel-y- arrangement will be used when the Parc) . BBCl equipment is replaced in 1989. All the new transmitters are capable WORLD SERVICE of carrying stereo sound (with the Daven t ry addition of transcoding and mod- In early 1988 a further three new ulating equipment). fully-automatic 300 kW transmitters were brought into service at The design of replacement antenna Daventry. The on-station equipment systems continues to be in•’luenced by for the BBC-designed microprocessor the longer hours of broadcasting, control system was also brought into limiting the time available for full service, completing the current maintenance. For example, testing is phase of modernisation. under way on the 'downloading' system which will use the BBC2 network The three 250 kW transmitters during the night to transmit released from service at Daventry by scrambled medical programmes to the modernisation programme are to be doctors ' surgeries. Other reinstalled, one at Skelton A and two influential factors are the use of at the Atlantic Relay Station. data transmitted simultaneously with the television signals, and Orfordness/Skelton C increasing awareness of the possible Following detailed discussions with effects of RF radiation. These the KO, the Orfordness HF factors have affected the scheduling development has been abandoned. An of antenna work at Winter Hill, alternative plan involving building a Bilsdale, and Heathfield. 4-transmitter fully automated station at Skelton (Skelton C), adding two Looking to the future, technical further 500 kW transmitters at assessments have been made of Rampisham, and two further 250/300 kW available equipment to replace transmitters at Cyprus has been existing RBL receivers and agreed with the KO. demodulators, and an appraisal is being made of the best way of replacing the original transmitter input equipment (TIE).

UHF PIE Tests are being conducted on support items for the new UHF Programme Input Equipment. The tests will enable some items of existing equipment, such as rebroadcast receivers and transmitter demodulators which are a maintenance liability, to be replaced Seychelles tranmitter building.

4 Indian Ocean Relay Station, transmitters and four antennas is Seychelles progressing well, with the new The Indian Ocean Relay Station has building extension .being available been successfully installed and for electrical access by September. commissioned to meet the service date The two 250 kW transmitters have now of 25 September. The operational left Daventry and are en-route. manager is now on site.

The station equipment consists of two Stage 11 of the power station re- Marconi 250 kW transmitters which engineering is on schedule with two feed six wideband Marconi antennas remaining W.H. Allen engines to be (or a Brown Boveri test load) via a installed by December. Spinner 7 x 2 coaxial matrix and Kabelmetal 100/230 feeders. As with The work is scheduled to be completed Hong Kong it is controlled and by the end of spring 89; erection of monitored automatically by the BBC- three of the five new support towers designed control system, removing the has been completed, and the need to staff the station outside installation of the four new arrays daylight hours. should progress to a stage where all will be ready for testing by the end With two separate satellite-fed of 1988. programme chains the station is designed to improve the World Service in English and vernacular broadcasts Commercial control and monitoring to East Africa. equipment for the senders and arrays is now in an advanced stage of Atlantic Relay Station, Ascension simulation testing in the UK, and Island will be shipped to the station in The present project of two additional September.

Ascension Island: antenna switching matrix.

5 East Mediterranean Relay Station IMPROVING RESILIENCE Operational requirements have been With the advent of extended hours of issued for the installation of the broadcasting in one form or another BBC-designed automatic control system and the lowering of threshold levels and for two 300 kW fully automatic for safe working in RF fields, transmitters. An additional satellite Transmission is preparing a study for feed must also be provided, bringing the provision of reserve aerials at the number of satellite chains for key stations. Cyprus up to six. The work will also require the re-engineering of the SHF A study has been completed for the link between Zyyi and the Ladies Mile provision of additional standby site; this link will carry the diesel generating plant - mains control and monitoring signals as failure is the largest single cause well as the programme feeds, of programme service outage! permitting the unattended operation of the high power MF transmitters at Ladies Mile. Planning for Cyprus is BROADCAST COMMUNICATIONS well advanced, with a proposed Fixed Links completion date of mid-1991. BBC-engineered Television radio-links have been provided for Pebble Mill - Lesotho Waltham, Aberdeen - Kirk olShotts and The installation of a further 100 kW Edinburgh - Kirk olShotts. HF transmitter and omni-directional antenna in the independent Kingdom of Radio links currently being Lesotho has been completed, resulting engineered include contribution and in significant improvements in the distribution vision circuits in coverage of the Republic of South Northern Ireland, East Anglia and the Africa. The provision of a dedicated London area. satellite ground station for receiving BBC programme feeds is in hand. Project completion is expected ENG by spring 89. A new ENG communications vehicle, based on a Land Rover, is about to go MONITORING AND INFORMATION into service. The vehicle includes At the end of 1987 the infamous vision radio-link transmitters in the 'hurricane' brought major disruption 2.5 GHz and 7 GHz bands, together to broadcast services in the south of with a range of other communication England. Remarkably, the mast at facilities. Reigate relay station was the only one to suffer significant structural An improved ENG receiving antenna has damage and that as a result of a been provided at Crystal Palace. fallen tree! However, mains failures This is a dish antenna, mounted on a and telephone exchange failures rotator which has the effect of prevented the MIC at Crystal Palace increasing the catchment area for from functioning, and the role of News coverage. Following successful 'All UK MIC' was taken over by Sutton field trials, a second such antenna Coldfield for a period. is currently being provided to enable 360 degrees coverage to be achieved. The Monitoring and Information Centres are complete: however much of A fourth ENG site is currently being the plant is obsolete and prohibits engineered at Wrotham. expansion. This factor, together with proposals to expand the monitoring and control function to HF Vehicles stations and the possibility of a Following the successful introduction self-provided communications network, into London Tel OBs of a 70 it Simon has caused us to take a fresh look at hydraulic platform to support a pair the monitoring and information of 4 ft diameter 08 antennas, a function. second such platform is being provided for Manchester OBs, and a satellite transmission system is 100 ft version is being provided for being used to supply World Service in London. English, digitally-coded at Bush House, to Australia. This will Tenders are currently being sought, provide a 6 kHz sound channel using against a Transmission Engineering only 64 kbit/s by employing the SCOOP Specification, for the provision of system developed by AETA of France. four compact radio-link vehicles. For the first time Mercury will These vehicles are expected to provide the terrestrial and satellite provide a more economic alternative space segment capacity to the BBC. to the current conventional radio- The service is due to commence on 25 link vehicle. Two of. the September 1988. conventional vehicles have recently been put into service for Birmingham At present the programme feeds to and Manches ter . Ascension and Antigua comprise two of 6.5 kHz quality to each station, and OB Radio-Link Projects one of 3.5 kHz common to both A number of mobile OB vision radio stations, all operating via the links have been introduced into Atlantic Ocean Satellite. The service: these cover the 2 GHz, 7 GHz addition of two transmitters at and 12 GHz bands and include both Ascension (from Daventry) and our "main-line" OB equipment and special future intention o f hiring purpose lightweight equipment. transmitter facilities from Radio Bras in Brazil, has led to the Television OB reception terminals are upgrading of the 3.5 kHz feed to 6.5 being provided at Rowridge and kHz; this work will be complete in Plymouth and 5.5 GHz reception early 1989. facilities are being provided at Sutton Coldfield to supplement the Planning work is currently being existing 7 GHz reception facility. A undertaken to provide a third 11- contract has been placed for about 40 metre dish at Crowsley Park and an VHF music links for both Television additional 11-metre dish in Lesotho, and Radio OB usage. Theselinks, Southern Africa. which have a high quality audio performance, have been developed by TELECOMMUNICATIONS D&ED and will be manufactured by New PABXs were installed at Pebble Eddystone. Mill, Kendal Avenue, and Kensington House, the latter being the first to A Local Radio project is under way to use DDI (Direct Dialling In) from replace the VHF communications Mercury. There were also nine systems on all Local Radio cars and smaller installations, and the base stations. This is necessary Newcastle PABX, serving NE Region and because of an internationally agreed Radio Newcastle jointly, became fully frequency plan for the 141 MHz band operational during the year. All on which this equipment currently these are modern digital PABXs with operates. The project will involve improved facilities, and all benefit equipment changes on up to 73 sites from reduced annual operating costs. and 38 Local Radio vehicles. The exchanges at BH, TC, and Bush Satellite Communications have all been connected to Mercury's The satellite receive-only earth network (in addition to BT) for station at Seychelles was completed outgoing calls, reducing all charges under a contract placed with Cable 6 and giving increased resilience. Wireless as part of the Indian Ocean Relay Station. Tens of thousands of telephone instruments have been purchased at TC A new audio coding system used in and BH resulting in annual savings of conjunction with a new Intelsat hundreds of thousands of pounds. Comprehensive call logging facilities 3 VHF, 1 HF, and 2 Radio-Car Base); have been provided at BH, TC, Bush the average time from receiving the and KH, with monthly reports to brief to gaining access for building managers. is approximately 24 years. Temporary office accommodation of 20,000 sq ft A Private Automatic Computer Exchange was found to enable staff to move to (PACX) has been installed in London, the Midlands in advance of the offering direct connections to the completion of our HQ at the Message Switching System and Sulgrave Technology Park. House. It is a modular system that can be expanded to meet a number of Radio Communications growth continues requirements for connection of simple in the public and private sector and asynchronous terminals. A our income from site sharing and complementary "X25" switched data grazing rentals is now over E1.25m network is being commissioned and per annum and rising quickly. The this will become the BBC standard for section dealing with site sharing has more demanding applications. been strengthened and is now able to keep pace with the increased demand The Valve Stores Nova computers have for these facilities. In conjunction been moved from Motspur Park to with ACED and TED, procedures are Bropdcasting House. RFI problems at being streamlined in order to shorten Daventry, where remote terminals are the timescale between application and sited, were overcome by installing installation. Financial procedures fibre optic cables on the are also being revised in order to transmitting station. maximise commercial benefits, and building operations co-ordinated to The Data Over Voice (DOV) system of minimise operational difficulties. using telephone cabling for combined Safety continues to take up speech and data, which has proved significant time both corporately and very successful at BH in terms of departmentally. Asbestos and PCB revenue savings and speed of removal is now virtually complete and connection, has been installed at the RF Epidemeological survey is now Bristol, and will soon be available in progress. The National Radiation at TC. Protection Board's comments regarding RF fields are about to be published COMPUTERS and there has been considerable The TRISTAR system hardware has been liaison with the Health & Safety successfully transferred to Warwick, Executive regarding a draft document and is being connected to Engineering on high sound levels. An examination Division's data communica t ion of water systems within Transmission network, along with the Unisys B28 is taking place following the computers at the monitoring centres outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease at and HF transmitter sites. Broadcasting House and steps are being taken to ensure the quality of The remaining staffed transmitter our systems. sites will shortly receive B28 computers. All managers will then Proposals have been formulated for have immediate access to EMIAS and the re-organisation of Support TRISTAR. This will give them more Services which takes recognition of control over finance and the ability the increased importance of site to retrieve and analyse equipment sharing and the long-term require- fault information, and will lead to ments for site finding, together with better resource management within the a need to manage our premises at the department. Warwick Technology Park.

SUPPORT SERVICES RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING Twenty-three new sites were found and The scheme for recruiting non- progressed in the last year (17 UHF, electronic graduates continues to be successful in providing candidates at A review of on-station training has the trainee engineer level. The been carried out and the initial intake have now completed recommendations are being discussed their training and are proving to be at senior level. useful engineers. Three additional St Helenian trainees have been recruited for Ascension The local staff on Cyprus will Island. The trainees are now well shortly benefit from a course based into the first term of their three- on the new control system being year training period to obtain a BTEC introduced at HF stations. certificate. Television

LONDON STUDIOS TC3 and TC4 News and Current Affairs Following the introduction of the In a flurry of activity in the autumn Calrec assignable desk in the Master of 1987 TC2 was converted to be the Sound Control Vehicle last year this News & Current Affairs studio for type of desk has now been introduced Newsnight (and from Easter 1988 for into Television Centre Studios. With Breakfast Time) with all its sources this system, any of the 96 channels coming from SCAR (Spur CAR) instead may be assigned to one of two set-up of main block CAR. panels allowing detailed adjustment of any parameter. The system memory Work was done on normally scheduled retains the settings while the panels out-of-service days and overnight - are reassigned to different channels. so as not to disturb the scheduled This concept permits a large number programmes. In a final push, the of channels to be controlled from a studio came out of service on 17 physically small console. The December and after a fortnight's work flexibility offered allows a wide re-entered service for the first range of desk configurations to be Newsnight of 1988 on 4 January. set up as required.

The move from Lime Grove required Such desks have already been some major work in the graphics area installed in TC3 and TC4 and a to provide a new apparatus room and similar desk is on order for TC1. extra preparation areas in a very - - short timescale. The development of these areas continued with the Sypher 2 provision of an off-line graphics Television Centre Sypher 2 was area, which was designed to work briefly removed from service early in directly with a VT edit suite, and 1988 for improvements to the sound was completed in August. A second monitoring. One wall of the control off-line graphics area is being room was moved, doors were rearranged installed under contract and is and a redundant section of the Neve expected to be in service in console was discarded to centralise November. the operator's position. The opportunity was taken to replace the The core of each News and Current mix-automation computer with a Necam Affairs graphics area is the Quantel 96, install an AMS Audio File, Paintbox and DLS 6001 Stills Store. replace the 16-track tape machine This equipment is supported by Aston cabling with 24-track and to enhance, character generators, Charisma in the light of experience, several di'gital video effects, copy cameras of the mixing control functions. and video combining/keying equipment. Sypher 3 & 4 For its relaunch, the Nine O'clock Television Centre Syphers 3 & 4, two News required a set which integrated new comprehensive Sound Post- a production office with studio production Suites, entered service facilities. To achieve this, the old during the year. Each is equipped N3 Studio was demolished, with with SSL computer-assisted consoles considerable rearrangement o f with motorised quadrant faders services, to provide a Nine O'clock specially designed by Penny & Giles. News Studio and production area at Updating with the SSL enhanced G- one end of the Newsroom. All the series software is imminent. The work had to be arranged so as not to facilities in each suite include two disrupt the normal working of a 24-track A820, one 8-track A80 and newsroom which is in use from three twin-track A812 Studer tape Breakfast Time to Newsnight. machines, three EMT turntables, an AMS Audio File and a 20 square metre Stereo Conversion of Network Areas sound studio. During this year, the conversion to stereo of the Central Apparatus Room Music and Arts Programme (CAR) main routeing system has A temporary graphics and VT editing continued, with completion expected facility is being installed in Lime in the autumn. As the existing CAR Grove to enable a live, four nights a has a somewhat limited life, the week, Music and Arts programme to be stereo conversion has been carried produced from Studio D. The entire out using the original 16-level installation f rom requirement, uniselectors, now some 27 years old, through planning and installation, to which are expected to motor on for handover will be completed within 18 another decade or so. Clyde weeks by a team of engineers from PID Electronics have been contracted to Tel . provide a stereo monitoring system for the area, but all the Broadcasting House and Norman Shaw installation work is being executed North Studios "in-house" by Central Systems Section During the year both of these studios of PID Tel. have been given a complete refurbishment of their vision, sound and remote control systems. These facilities are designed for unattended use and are remotely controlled from News Studios in Television Centre. Each studio is being equipped with a Sony BVP5 CCD camera and a Sony DXC 3000 camera for back-up purposes. Camera and lens movement is achieved by a Vinten Microswift system.

Presentation Central Stills Library The new Network Control for BBC 1. Following a joint assessment of suitable systems by Network, In the Presentation Suite, the sterFo Presentation and PID Tel, Quantel- conversion of the Network Control Link have been chosen to supply and areas (NC1 and NC2) is proceeding. install a new Electronic Stills The whole programme chain of NC1, Library System. Because Presentation including Continuity, can now handle continually handles 1 ive stereo programmes, and a stereo transmissions, interfacing with the monitoring system has been designed, operational areas is being carried built and installed by Ian P Kinlock out in-house by Central Systems 6 Co Ltd. NC2 is being mostly Section, PID Tel. The system will be rebuilt to accommodate new equipment operational by the autumn. for stereo, and will incorporate an identical IPK sound monitoring Promotions staff will be able to system. At the same time other prepare stills sequences off-line improvements are being made, for from several sources including a example the vision monitoring is Quantel Paintbox recently installed being updated by the provision of a in the Graphic Design area of the matrix. Scenery Block. When complete, all Network areas will have access to a At the moment, stereo programmes are library of about 5,000 stills. handled by a separate stereo control room, as much of the time the digital Production facilities for special signal fed to the transmitter is material for the library will be much unrelated to the network, but when enhanced on corpletion of the all the above work is completed, it Auxiliary mixing Area by mid-1989. will be possible to route any stereo source to either network with full computer flooring and external monitoring facilities. communication circuits.

Electronic Graphics Stage V Development A considerable amount of installation The shell of the 8-storey Technical work has been undertaken to provide Bl-ock for Phase 1 of the Stage V electronic graphics for Graphic development was completed in March Design Department in the Scenery 1988, and building fitout of the Block. Initially, a new apparatus Music Studio areas and one of the room and one preparation area was five technical floors is currently installed but this is now being under way. A contract has been developed to provide a further placed for the technical installation preparatinn area and a 32 x 32 RGRS of the Music Studio (including the routeing matrix. When this work is transfer of many items of equipment completed towards the end of from Lime Grove) for service in May year, each area will have access to 1989. Contracts have also been all facilities via the matrix. These placed for the equipping of film facilities consist of painting dubbing facilities, sound transfer systems (Paintbox, Art-File, Flair), and editing rooms on one technical character generators (Aston 3 & 41, level (again including many items copy cameras, slide scanners and RGBS redeployed from Lime Grove) with a lines to other areas such as CAR and target service date of August 1989. Video Rostrum. The fitting obt and equipping of the Computer Projects four other floors for Television A PID Tel team, working in Recording and Film Resources is at an conjunction with Television Computer advanced stage of planning. Access Services, have implemented numerous to these floors for technical information technology projects installation is expected throughout Television Directorate. progressively between October 1989 The Planning and Presentation and August 1990, with phased service computer has been upgraded to an ICL dates throughout 1990. series 39/25, the entry level for a new range of mainframe computers. The scope of the Stage V Phase 2 The production departments have been works has been expanded to cover the equipped with networked computer provision of a new main entrance and systems to enable them to formulate security block for the Television departmental budget estimates and Centre site, in addition to a control production costs more replacement Television Theatre. readily. Design and Scenic Services Services diversion works are to be had a significant upgrade to one of carried out later this year, prior to their HP3000 computers which now starting site building works. The provides a degree of resilience to new main entrance proposals include their departmental computing. Terry an improved vehicle management scheme Wogan was computerised to the benefit and better vehicle and pedestrian of all! security arrangements, and should be in use by autumn 1990. The integration of News and Current Affairs caused a substantial number Detailed building design is well of accommodation moves, requiring the advanced on the Phase 2 Theatre relocation of computer equipment. A Block, with civil engineering works significant example was the move of due to commence on site in January Television Computer Services from 1989. The design of the new theatre Centre House to Woodlands. The includes a cyclorama lighting trough project duration was 16 weeks and along three walls of the studio, and involved converting the original to assess the effectiveness and carpenters' workshop into habitable suitability of the proposed lid hi-tech offices, complete with mechanism, a full-sized prototype of - Television Centre with Stage V exten pictured April a section of the trough, with lid, Evaluation of new camera types has been constructed on the continues. Television Centre site. Access for equipping the Theatre complex is BROADCAST DATA SERVICES scheduled for, autumn 1991, with a Development and rationalisation of target service date of end 1992. broadcast data services: Ceefax, Datacast, Subtitles, and CAMERAS Telesoftware, continues to gain Ikegami HK 323 cameras have now been momentum. We have now exhausted the permanently installed in Glasgow ability of the system to accommodate Studio 'A' and in studios in Leeds these facilities on unused lines and and Newcastle. are having to rationalise the use of Development of the Thomson 1531 the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) camera is now complete and the first to provide more data lines. Included cameras for Type 6 CMCRs, TC1, in this activity is the introduction Cardiff C2 and for Elstree are of one-line ITS equipment and the undergoing acceptance procedures. integration of ICE into other facil-ities, and the rationalisation In the meantime Elstree Studio D and of the distribution system. two Type 6 CWRs in Wales are in service with 1530 cameras which have A new Ceefax computer system went on- been loaned by Thomson. air in July utilising five DEC PDPll computers which support up to 32 edit Thomson lightveight CCD cameras have terminals at Television Centre and been ordered for use in Elstree remote sites, and 16 lines to other Studio G and in Type 6 CKRs in computer systems. This new system Scotland. provides a faster service through the use of more lines, and has enabled steadily improved and further the introduction of Level-2 Teletext improvements are still in the with its enhanced displays, better pipeline. Betacam SP will be the graphics, more colours , more major component analogue format in characters and scrolling. the BBC, but there will be a need for some HI1 equipment for replay of HI1 Ceefax and Datacast now share seven tapes from e1s::where. television lines per field (12-18 and 325-3311. It is expected that it will be possible to increase the number of lines to at least ten (9-18 and 322-3311 and possibly eleven (8- 18 and 321-331). Trials are now taking place over both BBC networks. A new computer system is also being provided for Datacast - the BBC's commercial data broadcasting service. This new equipment is custom-built for the BBC and is intended to extend the data capacity of this service, which has expanded rapidly since its MI1 recorder. introduction two years ago. In addition, it allows more professional The six Dl digital component VTRs control of data flow, being capable mentioned in the last report have of varying a customer's priority and been delivered, four being used by charging on an hourly basis. Research Department initially as part of the EUREKA Project. The remaining RECORDING & FILM two are at Television Centre, one in In September 1987 the Recording and Graphics the other in the Recording Cinefilm Sections of PID Tel were Area. merged to rationalise the areas of overlap whilst preserving the expertise of the two sections. Use of outside contractors is now the norm except where the nature of the job does not lend itself to cost effective implementation in this manner. A particular example of this latter category was the transfer of film dubbing facilities from Gabalfa to Llandaff.

As predicted in the last report, the performance of Betacam SP and MI1 has

Betacam SP recorder. Dl digital component VTR. The agreement between Ampex and Sony Edit Suite B, on the fourth floor at to jointly manufacture and sell the Television Centre, is being re- D2 digital composite recorder has equipped. This is the first BBC "C" given the format the respectability format edit suite to be built and it needed and in fact Hitachi also installed by contractors and will use exhibited a model at the NAB a Sony 9000 Edit Controller instead Convention. This new format has a of the BBC designed "ELECTRA' number of important features and in a equipment. predominantly PAL environment is very attractive as a replacement for Two Telecine cubicle installations ageing "C" format machines. Initial have been provided to house the Rank orders for appraisal have therefore Cintel telecines mentioned earlier: been placed with both Ampex and these are also the first to be Sony with deliveries expected during contracted out. 1989. Due to the transfer of "Newsnight" to A considerable quantity of new film Television Centre from Lime Grove and recording equipment has been it was neccessary to re-arrange The bought since the last Report. News and Current Affairs videotape Significant purchases include two area to a very tight time scale. Rank Cintel MK I11 Telecines which incorporate CCIR 601 digital outputs, Finally the decision to close Lime together with Perfectone Sepmag Grove created the need to re-plan machines, for use at Television Stage V to incorporate film Centre; and nine Albrecht Sepmag facilities transferred from Lime machines for use in Glasgow together Grove, and this will require with a projector to provide video significant additional effort from output using a Sony CCD camera. This the Section. equipment, together with its control system, makes a very flexible and OUTSIDE BROADCASTS effective film dubbing system. It Type 6 CMCRs will form the basis of the film The third of the five 6-camera Type 6 dubbing area in the new film block in CMCRs (one Northern Ireland, two Bristol and in Television Centre wales, two Scotland) commenced Stage V. service for BBC Wales in November 1987, covering a Rugby match at Leicester using cameras borrowed from By the end of August some 140 units Thomson. The two remaining CMCRs of Betacam SP equipment had been have since been handed over to ordered by Network and Regions and Scotland, the first being used with deliveries included 21 studio temporary cameras to cover programmes machines and 23 portables. The from the Glasgow Garden Festival remaining deliveries will be phased throughout the summer. The other and extend into 1989. Fourteen "C" made its debut by acting as a central Format VTRs have also been ordered of control room to cover golf from which three were the Ampex/Kudelski Gleneagles in July. VPR 5. Installation o f the full- Several major installation projects specification Thomson cameras has have been undertaken over the last just commenced and the work is year in the London area, including expected to be complete on all the PECA (PSC Editing and Conforming CMCRs by early 1989, when six Area 1, a highly sophisticated compatible lightweight CCD cameras facility based on Betacam SP VTRs and are delivered to Scotland. using predominantly analogue component techniques, which has been Outside Broadcast Tender Vehicle provided in the East Tower at The Television News Tender is a Television Centre. support vehicle for the News OB Unit (CMCR51). The vehicle is based on a facility based around hired-in ~ordCargo chassis with a purpose equipment will be provided while work built body incorporating a stabilised is carried out. roof platform and a 20 KVA Generator. The forward section has facilities Belfast for carrying. four camera heads A new C-format edit suite is expected complete with accessories and also to be in service by October. houses the main power control panel for the- generator and changeover Manchester switches to external main supplies. The fire at Manchester Studio A on 27 The rear section carries cable drums February 1988 required rapid action and space for other miscellaneous by PID Tel, DLED, and the regional items. The vehicle is also equipped staff. Immediately after the fire to cater for the needs of the crew RCPD made available a new Type B with washing and cooking facilities. Radio Sound Vehicle which was Cellnet and Spurnet radio telephone temporarily connected by Manchester equipment are mounted in the cab. Audio Unit into what remained of the sound system. PID Tel then started REGIONS the job of augmenting the system with Glasgow more comprehensive facilities by A new Graphics area is being built in using the elderly Master Sound Glasgow to accommodate the equipment Control Vehicle (replaced last year presently being used in a temporary by the MSC3 1. from Tel OBs. This work installation. The work is being done had to be done around scheduled under contract by Television Systems programmes and involved building two Ltd and managed by Central Systems bays of distribution and radio Section of PID Tel: the changeover to talkback equipment and installing a the new area is planned for the temporary distribution frame beginning of September. The providing in excess of 200 circuits facilities provided are a Quantel to the MSCV. Paintbox, Art File, copy camera, simple video combiner and two Aston 3 Eight weeks after the fire, the MSCV character generators. Video and was driven into the space vacated by control connections to the studio the Radio van and coupled up, Slide Files have been provided to providing a facility which will simplify picture transfer. service all programmes until a new sound control room is installed in A second C-format editing suite has 1989. been added at Glasgow, using some of the equipment removed from Suite B at Pebble Mill Television Centre. The refurbished Central Technical Area in Pebble Mill is now in Cardiff service. The project has taken five Studio C2 is currently out-of-service years to complete and has been undergoing a major refurbishment of commissioned stage by stage over the its technical facilities. past year. At the heart of the system are seven routers including a During 1989 both television 64 x 72 five-level local router and a continuity mixers in Cardiff will be 120 x 120 control line router. All replaced. In conjunction with seven are under the control of one Cardiff staff , PID Tel have prepared microcomputer management system which a specification for a new type of enables complex programme continuity mixer which will include a requirements to be stored and later simple events memory, allowing initiated at the touch of a button at complex junctions to be built up any studio control panel. Colour during rehearsal, and then displays in the Central Technical transmitted with a minimum of Area continually monitor system and operator effort. A temporary matrix status including full indication and diagnosis. The system Els tree has been designed to provide a very Elstree Studio A, which has not been high degree of flexibility, to meet technically equipped since ATV changing programme requirements over departed some years ago, is now the next ten to fifteen years. undergoing a complete refit, including new production gallery Sou thampton layouts with improved acoustic A new Graphics area was installed in performance and modern air Southampton at the beginning of the conditioning. Rank Strand Lighting year by PID Tel. The area was control systems, dimmers, and designed so that it can be easily luminaires, are being installed along transported to the new Headquarters witn a new design of monopole lamp when that is completed. The suspension. facilities comprise an Art file, copy camera, Aston 3 character generator Thompson 1531 full facility cameras and a keyer. This installation will and a CCD 1640 lightweight camera allow much greater electronic will feed a flexible vision system graphics contribution to regional based around a Grass Valley 200 programmes. vision mixer and Probe1 switching matrices. Negotiations for acquisition of the site for the South Regional The studio is due to enter service in Broadcasting Centre from the city April 1989. council are being concluded and tenders for the initial phase of building work are being invited. Radio

ORGANISATION Under the former plans, the Concert The consolidation o f Radio Hall and Drama Studio 6A were Engineering and Operational returned to service during the year Departments into a single group and effectively now form the vanguard towards the end of last year of the new programme. Studio 8A will facilitated various organisational be back in service soon after the changes, some of which are still in year end and studio 3G has also been train at the time of writing. The rebuilt within the year. The new emphasis continues to be on an Continuities M h Q are in full increase in flexibility so that service and living up to their high changing demands can be met from the expectations, and planning is fixed, or gradually reducing, complete for the creation of a state- resource base. of-the-art popular music recording complex in Maida Vale Studios 4 b 5.

LONDON STUDIOS Work has continued on London Control The whole planned programme of work Room, with the stage at last now in London was radically revised this being reached where the replacement year following the postponement of operational positions are being the New Broadcasting Centre for planned in detail. Radio, which is not now due for completion until 1997. The plan is OUTSIDE BROADCASTS now to refurbish the whole of the BH Great success has been achieved with facilities over the next few years, the replacement "B" and "C" size leaving nothing over fifteen years vehicles mentioned last year. The old in 1997. design and construct ion have been

Type "C" vehicle.

18 The mixing desk in the Type "B" vehicle. universally praised and contracts for Of the new stations, Gloucestershire further vehicles have been placed. will open this year, and Hereford & Worcestershire, Wiltshire, ' and The availability of extra vehicles at (probably) Warwickshire, next. changeover time proved very useful as Radio were able to lend a Type B The refurbishment of Edinburgh, Queen vehicle to Manchester to provide Street, is well under way, as is the sound facilities following the fire construction of the new transmission there. area for Radio Ulster in Belfast.

Of the fixed OB installations, the The new office block at Bangor has extensive facilities at Wimbledon been completed and is to be formally have been refurbished and contracts opened by DG on 16 September. placed for new mixers for the Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and DEVELOPMENTS Queen Elizabeth Hall. As in previous years, technical developments have centred around ReGIONS digital audio and RDS. The RDS Following the review referred to last control computer system is now year, the establishaent of the complete and the system operational remaining new Local Radio Stations is throughout England. proceeding apace. Including On the digital audio front, the refurbished stations, there will progress with disc-based editing has never before have been so many been impressive, and delivery of the openings in such a short space of first batch of equipment from Real time. World Research is expected shortly. The BBC has entered into a co-operative agreement with Real World Research (RWR) covering the development of RWR's "Tablet" random access audio editor. Photo shows (seated) HRD Bruce Moffat and RWR Technical Director Carl Schofield; and (standing) GMOpsEngR Simon Shute; Head of RD Sound Section David Meares; and Stephen Paine, MD of RWR's distribution company, Syco Systems Ltd.

The ability to handle OB to be played at a higher quality than contributions in digital form has ever before and has allowed us to use been available for some time, as of historical recordings which had been course has the digital distribution considered unuseable. In the same to transmitters. The ability to link manner, equipment has been these two systems is now available manufactured that allows modern and it is planned that the inaugural reproduction of old '78' discs in a 'all-digital' broadcast will be made manner that matches the original during this year's Promenade Concert recording characteristics. By means Season. of this and sophisticated noise reduction equipment a result is OTHER FACILITIES achieved that is comparable to many New technology has been applied to more-modern recordings. the best possible reproduction of our unique collection of archival A major drive during the year has recordings. A cylinder player has been in the direction of providing been designed and manufactured using better facilities to production staff modern components and techniques for use in office areas and as which allows old recording cylinders portable equipment. The Portable Recording Unit (formerly in Radio desirable developments. The first OBs) was absorbed into the General stage of the Radio 2 system was Facilities Unit and a Facilities installed in April and the second Centre was opened. This allows over- stage is due this autumn. The first the-counter supply of any equipment stage of the Current Recordings required by programme producers and system is expected at the be.ginning is a centre for advice on its of 1989. operation, repair or transport. In addition, a major replacement Mini-computer systems have been programme was set up to modernise all installed in Radio OBs and Radio 1, tape machines and office equipment and are planned for Radio Engineering used in producers' offices and to and Sport & OBs - where a 54 terminal upgrade it from "domesticn quality to Newsroom-type system is intended. "professionaln. So far, among other things, 350 tape machines, 50 video A further two Local Area Networks of cassette recorders, 220 portable PCs have been installed and four more recorders and 150 cassette machines have been ordered. have been supplied. In addition, the widespread introduction of compact discs has meant the supply and The Music Logging and Reporting installation of 150 CD players in System (SABLE) employing bar codes on offices and the installation of records is now in use in nearly all professional CD players in most Local Radio stations. It is now proposed to develop with Local Radio studio areas. a Music Selection system using the catalogue of music held in the SABLE COMPUTERS Computer Services Radio have system on each station. continued the development of three new mainframe systems. The second The installed systems and various stage of the Drama System, which was stand-alone micros and word implemented in April, is working processors have added about 150 satisfactorily and a review in screens to the current population in October will consider further Radio! World Service BUSH HOUSE CAVeRSHAM The refurbishment of studios in the The building of the new extension is North West Wing is now complete and now complete and the technical the studios are now in service. In installation is progressing well. September work started on Some computer hardware is on site, redeveloping the fifth and seventh and high level discussions are floors of Centre Block to provide two continuing with Honeywell. continuity suites and three medium talks studios. At Crowsley Park satellite dishes 1 and 2 are in limited operational The rebuilding of the Central service pending resolution of Technical Area is nearly complete - outstanding software problems. technical access became available in August . The new Control Room is WARC PROGRESS scheduled to enter service in the Intensive international discussions third quarter of 1990 with total on the development of an acceptable completion due in September 1991. planning system continue, and tentative dates for a further WARC on A new chilled water plant is being High Frequency broadcasting are being installed on the roof of the North discussed. Preparations are also East Wing, and this should be being made for BBC interests to be complete by March 1989. Air blast taken into account at the 1989 ITU cooling towers will be used. Plenipotentiary'Conference. TRANSCRIPTION RECORDING UNIT The technical refurbishment of Kens- EDS I1 ington House Studio T1 is complete Following FCO agreement detailed and the studio has returned to planning of the successor to our service. current EDS system is well advanced.

SSL 4048E(40) desk in Kensington House Studio T1 The two llm satellite monitoring dishes at Crowsley Park

Unisys has been contracted to draw up is virtually a further phase in the a system specification and tenders audibility programme as well as a will be sought from suitable considerable RWOP programme. suppliers in due course. The system will be required to service up to TRANSMISSION 1400 terminals. World Service transmitter and communications projects, including LOOKING PORWARD satellite links, are covered under Work continues on drawing up plans the appropriate heading in for capital developments throughout "Transmission" at the beginning of the 1990s. These plans embrace what this Report. Design and Equipment

Avenue House Throughout the year a major programme ethernet ring makes computing of refurbishment and construction has facilities from a VAX installation been in progress at Avenue House in available to all the design staff, preparation for the move of the and several Unisys clusters provide Western House based staff to the Sulgrave mainframe access, database, site, which took place in June this word processing and spreadsheet year. An old and partly derelict applications. office building was demolished, an extension constructed and the majority of Avenue House completely stripped and refurbished. Very little of the original interior remains.

Throughout the period the building remained occupied and normal working continued, a situation which demanded great forbearance on the part of the staff.

The new office areas are based on a proprietary partitioning system and are mostly open plan with managerial peripheral units. Laboratory areas have static conductive floors to avoid the build up of charges which can destroy or damage integrated circuits. VAX equipment room.

Technical facilities are centred in a Radio Data Service CTA, and audio, video and RF signals, Design Group has played an important including HDTV and digital video and part in devising this system to suit sound are distributed to most of the the BBC's broadcast transmission areas within the building. An network. It has designed all the equipment installed at transmitters, programmed the computers installed at Broadcasting House, and advised on the specification for the BBC's portable FM receiver. Prototype equipment was produced by Support Group for the initial installation and the necessary licences granted to manufacturers for the supply of future quantities of equipment.

Digital Audio We have continued to develop digital audio equipment to help establish the feasibility and economics of handling the signal in this form. The most recent installation has been a digital continuity bypass in Broadcasting House. This allows Central Technical Area. digital contributions from outside Datacast and Downloading We have contributed to the increasing success of Datacast by providing advice on receivers and installing trial receiving equipment, and, more recently, by working with Receiver Section and Research Department to demonstrate the feasibility of downloading and establish its launch.

Radio Links The re-allocation by the Government of frequencies for ancillary services produced an urgent demand for new radio links capable of carrying a high quality music channel. A new Band 111 link has been designed which Digital continuity byoass equipment. makes much more efficient use of the spect rum space available than the broadcasts to be mixed in the equipment which it replaces. Continuity and carried through to the transmission network without conversion to analogue form at any Engineering Support point in the chain. Among the Innovatory prototypes and pre- processes involved are conversion production batches of equipment are from the NICAM 3 standard on the produced to tight delivery schedules contribution circuit to the AES-EBU and tested in the Support lab. The standard within the studio centre, provision of the first sets of Radio and vice-versa for transmission. Data equipment and Band I radio Among other processes are synchr- microphone equipment are examples of onisation of bitstream and digital this type of work. After the initial limiting of the signal. provision by D&ED, further quantities of equipment are obtained firom Digital Video approved contractors, following The facilities available on the D&ED competitive tendering. designed digital video mixers installed at Television Centre have been enhanced by the addition of Liason with industry on loudspeaker chroma-key (CSO). developments continues and much- improved listening facilities in the new accommodation are a great asset to this work. The incorporation of BBC-manufactured equipment in

Television downloading. DbED listening room.

2s commercial systems for the still a substantial amount of special refurbishment of TC1 provided the work handled by BBC engineers, who in opportunity to increase the scope of turn require the individual knowledge this liason with industry. Many of and experience offered by the in- the designs are licensed to commer- house installation staff. cial manufacturers and equipment is available directly f rom the New Corporate Logo licensees. The introduction of the new logo presented an opportunity t o Access to a number of technical thoroughly overhaul our approach to databases in the fields of large-volume print and paper buying. components, semiconductors, inte- The four colour concept and the grated circuits and vacuum display potential difficulties of the design devices now allows us to provide an were an additional challenge to the enhanced technical support and buying team. Working closely with information service throughout the Information Services who set the Corporation. standards, economical methods were devised for obtaining and supplying The Department continues to provide letterheads and business cards of the installation staff but the demand has neccessary quality. The varieties of decreased in line with the policy of products held in stock were handling major projects by placing rat ionalised and the methods of turnkey contracts with commercial purchasing unstocked logo items were companies. Nevertheless there is streamlined. Research

Three salient topics have influenced involving signal scrambling and the activities of Research Department sometimes encryption. The during the past year: the launch of applications i nc 1ude possible several European co-operative satellite transmission of BBCl and projects; the further development of BBC2, and overnight automatic conditional access techniques; and 'downloading' of broadcast TV signals the search for spectrum for into video cassette recorders. additional terrestrial broadcasting channels. The Government has expressed a strong interest in providing more television Of major significance was an offer services, and the DTI requested co- from the Department of Trade and operation from the BBC and the IBA in Industry of substantial financial investigating the technical support to the BBC for the three possibilities and population coverage years of the Eureka high definition for fifth and sixth channels in the MAC-compatible television project. UHF/VHF bands. Intensive work by all The BBC is the largest UK contributor parties was undertaken at Kingswood to the project. Warren and a report on the fifth channel was completed towards the end European co-operation in comm- of 1987. It indicated a way of unications research and development attaining about 70% coverage. took a great step forward towards the end of 1987 with the establishment of NICAM 728, the two-channel/stereo substantial parts of the RACE Main digital sound system for terrestrial Phase five-year programme. Research television, has been adopted as the Department is engaged in three of the EBU digital standard. The Nordic RACE projects and is leading one countries are about to launch NICAM concerned with wavelength-and time- 728 services and all the major division multiplexing of high bit domestic receiver and recorder rate signals for routeing and manufacturers are well advanced with transmission applications. However, suitable products and several our largest RACE effort is on the thousand NICAM VCRs had been sold. project aimed at advanced forms of The BBC has reserved its position on bit-rate reduction for all kinds of when to launch a digital stereophonic video and high quality audio signals. sound service with television but We are also making a small experimental NICAM 728 broadcasts contribution to the main mobile communications project to try to ensure that outside broadcast sound programme and ancillary signals are accommodated. The EEC is meeting half the cost of each project.

Two further examples of European collaboration are a sub-contract we have from British Aerospace, in a European Space Agency study of satellite broadcasting of HDTV, and another Eureka project aimed mainly at digital audio terrestrial broadcasting.

A considerable amount of work is W signal off-air from CP: the NICAM being done on conditional access 728 digital sound signal is at the RH techniques for broadcasting, edge of the spectrum. continue from the BBCl and BBC2 transmitters at Crystal Palace.

Eureka 95 - HDTV Eureka was set up in 1985 to combine European efforts in areas of strategic research. One such area is obviously HDTV: work in this area is being pursued through 'Eureka 95'.

A consortium of some 30 European manufacturing companies, academic institutions and broadcasters are engaged on the project, and the work will consume some 1700 man years of Producer Phil Ashby at the controls high quality research effort. It of the mixer in the HDTV OB vehicle. covers every technical aspect of a new HDTV system, from psychophysical existing displays. The effect of studies of perception, through noise on an HDMAC signal in a WARC studios and transmission, to new VCRs satellite channel has important and receivers for the home. effects both on the received signal and on the various coding systems The Eureka HDTV system is based on within the transmission system. 1250-line origination - either Research Department has developed a interlaced or sequential - and is noise file which is being used within bandwidth compressed by a factor of Eureka to study these interactions. four to be transmitted in a 625-line MAC channel. The received picture A mobile labor.atory/HDTV outside can be viewed on a 625-line MAC broadcast unit has been designed and receiver, aspect ratio 4:3, or on a fitted out at Kingswood Warren with 16 :9 aspect ratio, 1250-line much help from Tel OBs. This is receiver. The 625-line/1250-line being used to generate programme transmission compatibility lies in material both for demonstration the use of the BBC Research concept purposes and to promote interest of DATV - Digitally Assisted among programme makers. Its equipment Television. This involves using a includes one camera (plus an side channel of about 1 Mbit/s occasional second camera on loan), capacity to allow the receiver to HDTV vision mixing and distribution recreate the 1250-line signal in the equipment, and an HDTV recorder. The receiver without undue blur or judder recorder comprises four Dl digital in spite of the 4:l bandwidth recorders which between them record a compression. digital HDTV picture and multichannel sound. Research Department has The BBC algorithm and system design for bandwidth compression in the chain was demonstrated at IBC '88, having been selected from seven European submissions as giving the best available picture quality.

It is possible that the Eureka HDTV system will employ a larger colour gamut than our present system. A revised choice of colour primaries has been made at Kingswood and has been agreed within Eureka as being both suitable for HDTV transmission The two BTS HDTV cameras used for the and prqviding compatible pictures on OU production. developed a multiplexer which takes achieved a resolution approaching 80% the analogue HDTV signal and of the possible equivalent HDTV translates it into four digital resolution. streams, one for each recorder, so that each machine records one-quarter This note touches on a few of the of the total HDTV bit stream. aspects of the BBC's work on Eureka. In overall terms, the BBC is involved It is interesting to note that while in seven of the ten projects which the first generation of 625-line comprise the bulk of Eureka, and digital recorders is only just leads one of them. We also chair the arriving, one of the first HDTV DATV working group and are active in recorders operates in the digital VLSI development and picture quality domain. This unit has been used for assessments. an outside broadcast at Buckingham Palace, and was used to mount a RACE (Research into Advanced production at the Open University Communications in Europe) Production Centre at Milton Keynes This is a separate pan-European outlining the main features of project, centred on the EEC, with the Eureka. In addition to using the two broad aim of supporting European HDTV cameras, the OU programme research to produce an Integrated generated 625-line electronic Broadband Communications Network in graphics and up-converted them to Europe from the mid-1990s. It is ~ - 1250 lines in a 625/1250 line up- argued that communications in the converter built by Research widest possihle sense is now the Department. The up-converter biggest employer in Europe and

The team responsible for the HDTV production; it includes manufacturers' personnel as well as BBC staff. accounts for more expenditure than The system - developed by Research defence, and that the provision of a Department - carries 16 different modern communications network in wavelengths of light on a single Europe is an essential part of the optical fibre distribution cable. future. A Europe-wide fibre optic Each wavelength is modulated with an network offering Mbit/s and Gbit/s electrical signal at 2.48 Gbit/s data rates is foreseen, carrying TV, which can itself be made up of a HDTV, high quality audio, computer number of digital sources such as 625 data, videophone signals etc. It is line TV (component or PAL); 525-line estimated that the capital investment TV; HDTV; high quality audio feeds, required for this will be some E450bn and talkback and communications and the EEC is recognising the circuits. The bit stream is research required by supporting standards independent and each European research with some E350m destination can select its own over a five-year period. sources. This project is designed to last five years at the end of which Some 50 major projects are under way the necessary optical and electrical in RACE, varying from fibre optic components - lasers, optical studies to the design of the future couplers, optical demultiplexers, .domestic terminal. optical receivers, high speed electrical matrix switching and high The BBC is involved in three speed electrical multiplexers and projects, one of which we lead: demultiplexers - will be available.

(a) We are contributing to a major These systems depend on the Thomson-led study on coding for production of specialised integrated vision and audio signals. A number circuits, optical and electro-optical of bit rate reduction methods are components and control software. Our being examined which will enable the partners [Alcatel (Spain), Thomson optical fibre networks of the future (Grenoble and Rennes), Jobin-Yvon to handle large numbers of TV, HDTV (Paris), Doctor Neher Labs (Holland), and audio signals at reasonable cost GEC (UK), STC (uK)], are each charged to the broadcaster. Research with producing parts of the system to Department is recognised as having our overall specification. major expertise in this area. This project has been running since January 1988, and has met all of its (b) Philips are leading a large first year targets. mobile project in RACE. This is mainly concerned with enlarging the The pace and scope of pan-European current cellnet thinking to a point Research projects is now very large. where we shall all have pocket phones They cover Education Technology which will work anywhere in Europe on ( DELTA Transport Information our own number. The BBC's concern is , Technology (DRIVE), Information that -the overall design of this Technology for medicine (AIMS), system should include our overall cooperation in Science and requirements as broadcasters to Technology ( COST) , General improve our ease of mobility both for Information Technology (ESPRIT) and news and outside broadcast coverage. many others.

(c) The BBC is, in Eurojargon, the It is important to the future of the prime contractor in a RACE project BBC that this rapid technological designed to produce an electro- growth throughout Europe recognises optical distribution system which the needs of broadcasters and brings could form the basis of the improvements in its wake. If the television studio system of the present rate of work is a forerunner future. of 1992, stirring times lie ahead. Fifth Channel The study concluded that using the In a paper prepared for Government by present 44 channels, only limited the independent consultancy CSP coverage could be achieved without International it was stated that a interfering with the coverage of the fifth television network could be four existing services. Even by accommodated within the UHF spectrum introducing precision of •’set to without interfering with the coverage existing and proposed new of the four existing national transmitters it would only be services. A joint BBC/DTI/IBA possible to provide about 17% working group was set up to see how coverage of the United Kingdom this might be achieved, working at population. It was considered that Kingswood where the BBC terrain and it might be possible to increase transmitter databases and suite of coverage to near 40% by withdrawing computer programmes were made some services from a number of available. During the course of the existing relay stations. In this way study the computer software was up to 20,000 viewers would lose one extended to facilitate analysis of or more of their present services, the calculations and presentation of and it would preclude the results. broadcasters' plans to make good existing small gaps in coverage. Consideration was also given to the use of Channels 35 and 37 which, so far, have not been allocated to television in the United Kingdom. This work included field tests which established criteria for the protection of airport and MOD radars operating on Channel 36, and the protection of television reception on Channels 35 and 37 from these radars. The study revealed that about 70% coverage could be achieved by using these channels, without interference to existing services.

The study was extended to consider the re-introduction of television into Bands I and 111, but it was concluded that only very restricted coverage could be achieved without causing major disruption to existing planned services in those bands.

The final conclusions of the working group were presented to the DTI in December 1987, and they formed the basis of a Report and Recommendation to Government. The Government has not officially responded, apart f.rom an announcement in April that "The re-introduction of broadcasting into Bands I and I11 is not a viable option". Their final deliberations on the Fifth Channel are not now expected to be made public prior to the publication of a White Paper on broadcasting now in preparation. Engineering Information EID's prime purpose is to provide an interface between BBC Engineering and the world at large - in particular viewers, listeners, publishers, other broadcasters, national and inter- national bodies such as BREHA, the DTI and the EBU; and last, but not least, other areas of the BBC. A major objective is to make sure that viewers and listeners are enjoying the best possible reception, i .e. that they are using the appropriate transmitter for their area, and the correct type of aerial connected to a EID staff at the Aerial Industries' suitable receiver. A variety of exhibition June 88. weapons are brought into play to ensure that this comes about: culminating in the International coverage maps; explanatory leaflets Broadcasting Convention at Brighton, which attempt to put over the which ended a week ago. technical requirements in the simplest way; pocket books carrying EID is also managing the prestigious lists of radio and television Faraday lecture tour which in the transmitters for dealers and next six months visits 17 different installers; press releases which towns in the United Kingdom and announce the opening of a new Ireland. The lecture, primarily station, followed by a visit to the aimed at 5th and 6th form science area as soon as possible after students, uses large-screen pro- opening to ensure that the public in jection equipment and the latest general, and local dealers in audio-visual equipment to demonstrate particular, are fully aware of the broadcasting principles, techniques, new station and its coverage; and and technology. Engineering Recruit- announcements on the Cee fax ment have not been slow to see the Engineering Page, both about new opportunities presented here, and services and changes to existing they will be mounting displays at services. every venue.

The great majority of individual Public meetings specially called to reception problems are dealt with by pillory the Broadcasters are now telephone or letter - some 24,000 rare, fortunately, but EID staff telephone calls and 5,000 letters are attend the "It's Your BBC" public answered annually. On the whole meetings, where the eminent BBC enquiries are equally divided between members on the panel are radio and television, but in the last extraordinarily adept at dealing with few months there has been a sex and violence but pale visibly significant increase in the number when any technical matter is about FM radio, spurred no doubt by broached. the Government's announced intention of transferring the medium frequency allocations of Radio 1 and Radio 3 to EID also provides a technical commercial operators. presence at exhibitions and shows around the country, particularly In the field the use of the well- where there is BBC Regional or Local equipped EID Range Rovers to check Radio representation. Over the last the coverage of new stations and for year we have organised displays or other reception investigations, given support at 16 different venues continues to be an important EID aerial system is found to be at fault, and our ability to demonstrate good reception, using the Range Rover, has made many a householder wiser and, sometimes, his rigger a little sadder.

EID has contributed substantially to the "FM Campaign" aimed at persuading Radio 1 listeners to switch from their familiar MF slot to the new FM .I I transmitters, especially by the production of attractive literature. L I Several different leaf lets have been specially designed for the campaign and during the last few months some 130,000 have been printed, in addition to 100,000 1 leaflets, booklets and information sheets on other topics. Plans are now being made for a small EID team to move around the country establishing temporary centres where the public can get reception advice.

EID survey vehicle. function. In addition, from time to time we assist TxED in investigating transmission problems, as in the recent case where we checked Waltham's radiation pattern. The Range Rovers are also invaluable for investigating individual reception problems in cases where long-range assistance by telephone or letter is ineffective or inappropriate - usually a number of such individual investigations are made at the time of a coverage survey. Most often the

Interior of EID survey vehicle.

33 hngineering 1 raining The training of new entry staff on technical categories of the BBC. the Introduction to Technical Operations and Q courses together On the resource side the major with the A(Eng), B(Eng1 and C(Eng) highlights have been the building and courses has continued steadily acceptance of the television basic throughout the year, with the operational training area, now termed predicted heavy workload in the Studio C, the refurbishment of September 1987 to February 1988 Television Studio A control room, the period. development of Radio Studio 6 in Avon Wing, and the installation of an During the year, in response to Artfile system in the television Output Directorate needs, ETD engineering area. These new or enhanced training, or introduced new modified resources are a welcome and training, in a number of significant necessary enhancement for ETD. areas. These include an Engineering Manager pilot scheme for non-ETSI Over the last few months a number of qualified staff, Thompson and Ikegami significant retirements and staff Camera training, and a "Stereo Sound changes have taken place, par- for TV" course as well as the two- ticularly the retirement of AHETD week Television Engineering De- John Brooks and the subsequent velopments (TED) courses for mid- appointment of Ralph Bowsfield into career engineers. Additionally ETD that post. Overall it has been a very staff have been fully involved in the busy time with some enhancement of introduction and continuation of the our facilities, and also one in which successful and innovative training of priority-based budgeting focused our non-technical graduates: this scheme attention ever more attentively on extends considerably the potential ways of providing an efficient and 101 of good recruits for the cost conscious training service.

Making a programme in Studio C Engineering Computer Services transactions to transfer data from During the last 12 months the ECS the mainframe to be processed team has developed major enhancements locally, and ways of transferring to the mainframe systems CEMAST and data from micro-systems to EMIAS are EMIAS, and developed further systems in development. APTNET has been on the Directorate's Unisys B20 chosen as the Wide Area Network Series micro-computer clusters. They Software, and this will eventually have continued to support an ever- form part of the X25 connection, increasing number of users of those which will link all Engineering systems, throughout the Directorate. clusters to allow sharing of inf- ormation, and eventually electronic DEVELOPMENTS OF MAINFRAME SYSTEMS mail. EMIAS - the BBC's Capital Budget and Engineering Directorate's Revenue System - has been enhanced to include Information Technology Engineering commitment control on revenue, The last twelve months has seen utility budgeting, manpower recorded considerable further expansion in the as expenditure against schemes, and field of Information Technology priority-based budgeting. This within the BBC. system is now used Corporation-wide.

CEMAST - Engineering Central Stores The rapid growth within BBC System - has been enhanced, changing Enterprises in order to achieve the system archiving to improve response profit targets set by DG, has led to and service generally. Various minor a heavy commitment to computer-based improvements have been implemented. systems. An ICL Series 39 mainframe The 'user friendly' enquiry and order has been installed at Sulgrave House, service via a dial-up line is being and this now forms Enterprises' widely used. principal business 'engine'. In addition, a full office automation DEVELOPMENTS OF MICROCOMPUTERS system (ICL's "Office Power") based There are now approximately 35 Unisys on an ICL Clan computer and running B20 micro-clusters using Office under a Unix operating system, has Automation Products, running various been provided throughout their administration systems produced by premises. ECS and accessing mainframe systems. ECS are also working on a major A full proprietary 'editorial' system system for Transmission, TRISTAR, by Systems Integrators Inc is being which currently collects fault provided for Radio Times - it is information from transmitter stations powered by a Tandem 'non-stop' and processes it to produce computer system located at Sulgrave management reports. Future imple- House. Some 50 workstations at 35 mentations will include the central- Marylebone High Street are connected isation of information on trans- to this machine via a dedicated BT mitters i.e. structures, maintenance, Megastream circuit; training is site sharing agreements, etc. A presently taking place. resource planning system for project control is being used in several departments on a pilot basis and Within the Central Directorates, should be 'live' soon, as will a projects undertaken by InfTE have leave system recording annual and included the installation of new other leave. Series 39 mainframes at Sulgrave House for Finance Directorate; the DlsvELoPWNTS OF nIxm extension of the Central Reference SYSTEllS Library system; and a survey and In the past year, local networks have subsequent preparation of a speci- been linked with mainframe systems,eg fication for the BBC's New York it is now possible to use EMIAS office, for Corporate Affairs. In Personnel Directorate, computer Recruitment systems have been provided for Copper During the current financial year 111, Copyright, Pay Relativities, Engineering and Technical Operations Occupational Health, and the Recruitment are seeking to appoint Solicitor's office. 114 qualified engineers, 73 trainee engineers, 37 technical operators and Installation of the Honeywell system 28 sponsored students. for the automation of Monitoring services continues, and is due for The BBC is continuing to obtain the completion during the next twelve services of suitable people in the months . number it requires despite a climate Within Engineering Division itself, of ever increasing competition from and in accordance with Engineering other employers seeking science-based Division strategy, numerous clusters graduates and school leavers holding of Unisys B20 series computers have '0' and 'A' level qualifications. The been installed in a variety of scheme to recruit high ability Departments and geographical loc- graduates as Trainee Engineers, from ations. InfTE was also instrumental the ranks of those holding non- in providing the technical instal- electronic degrees, was successfully lation for the rebuild at Avenue operated again this year. House, necessitated by the move of Design Group from Western House. In Demographic changes in the next few order to meet the very short years will seriously reduce both the timescale for this particularly number of graduates and qualified complex project, the existing school leavers entering the labour staffing was augmented by three market. In. anticipation of this, retired ex-SCPD engineers, retained Engineering and Technical Operations under short-term contracts. Recruitment embarked on a number of initiatives all intended to increase Finally, much experimental work has the awareness of young people of the been undertaken on computer opportunities available within the networking and interoperability. In engineering and operational areas particular, this has involved the ofthe BBC. Notable amongst these is installation of a 'pilot' broadband the participation of the Corporation (450 MHz bandwidth) data commun- in the East London Compact. In this ications network at the InfTE offices scheme, which is the forerunner of in Woodlands, and the development of the 30 now being proposed by the a small network management system. Government, schools undertake to educate students up to certain agreed Both these activities have direct levels of qualification in return for relevance to the plans for the new which the employer guarantees Corporate HQ at White City, which employment to those who achieve them. will be provided with a broadband network as part of the design-and- As an adjunct to the Faraday Lecture build contract . The need to Tour, Engineering and Technical interconnect users from a number of Operations Recruitment Section is Directorates with a variety of supporting the production of a different equipments will present teaching package, which, providing a problems, and it is hoped that the series of projects based on science first-hand experience gained from the and communications, is intended to InfTE system will enable us to encourage 13 year olds and above to overcome some of the potential pursue science-based further difficulties well in advance. education.

We continue to be involved in a full schedule of school and college visiting for the purpose of stimulating the interest of young people in working for the BBC and, at the same time, promoting the BBC's policy for equal opportunities.

Energy Management The two major objectives of the Energy Management section in supporting Directorate Management were to ensure that the Corporation pays minimum prices for electricity, gas, oil, and water; and to eliminate wastage of energy by conducting joint surveys with line management, identifying opportunities for energy reduction.

The annual review for 87/88 has shown that the primary requirement of substantially reducing the Corporation's utility bills has been achieved, and that the target of a net saving of E3m over five years will be exceeded.

Considerable savings continue to be made on all fronts with energy surveys conducted at major production centres including Glasgow, Pebble Mill, Belfast, Bristol and Leeds. The use of "hi-tech" control equipment has been extended to include microwave presence detection devices in studios, controlling both air conditioning and lighting.

A Regional Building and Engineering Services conference sponsored by the section was held at BH Belfast, and was judged by the delegates to be extremely informative.

Stability has been achieved in the staffing of the section which comprises a small group, trained and dedicated, capable o f both identifying opportunities and foll- owing these through. During the year the 3-terminal computer system holding the Corporation's Site Energy database was developed to include both colour graphics and comm- unications with computer systems at remote sites. ---HHB ENGINEERING ~d~pmd~by BBC Engineering Idam&on bepohranl